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Howard Stern Live-Tweets ‘Private Parts’ Commentary

You may have noticed that HBO has been airing Howard Stern’s Private Parts movie ad nauseum for roughly the past three weeks. The star of the autobiographical film certainly took note, and decided to flex his fantastically underestimated media power on Saturday afternoon by hosting a live-tweet session about the film for his fans and Twitter followers as it played on TV.

Yes, Howard Stern might have become the first person to live-tweet commentary to a movie about his own life. And damned if it isn’t five times more compelling than any average night with a late-night host, any of whom’s viewer numbers Stern quadruples in paid-subscription listeners daily.

Really, it’s true. While Leno, Letterman, Conan, Kimmel and others struggle to land 2-3 million viewers a night, Stern’s listener pull (to the tune of 8 million daily paid subscribers) is credited with singlehandedly saving Sirius Satellite Radio and enabling its merger with XM Radio.

The original Shock Jock went on a marathon Twitter session Saturiday, giving rare, behind-the-scenes commentary to the film after joining Twitter just days ago. Within an hour, #PrivateParts was the number one trending topic worldwide on Twitter. No easy feat, in the midst of an Egypt revolution.

For one scene, he spoke about trying to cry in a scene with actress Mary McCormack, who played Stern’s then-wife Allison. “In this scene Mary was crying and I wanted to be able to do that.[Director] Betty Thomas gave me something to put in my eye and make me cry.”

He also offered some off-screen anecdotes: “Mary went on the street in her pregnant costume and smoked a cig to mess with peoples heads. Preg lady smoking. She got dirty looks."

He also referenced David Letterman, who played himself in the movie: “We couldn’t get the rights to Dave’s show and Dave did me the favor of shooting this with me.”

Check out a hearty sampling of the live-tweet session of Stern’s commentary below.

Stern concluded his Twittering with these words: “Well that’s it for our movie of the day. Thanks for joining in. Have a great night.”

All of this begs the question: can Twitter commentaries such as this persuade DVR addicts to tune in during the real-time original broadcast? Imagine Tarantino recounting his insights on Kill Bill as it unfolds on your screen, or Jeff Bridges tweeting to the stoned hordes during a viewing of The Big Lebowski, or Bill Murray tweeting non-stop during a Ghostbusters marathon. The options are endless…